Victor Willis, the lead singer and songwriter of the Village People, clarified that their hit song, “Y.M.C.A.,” was not a gay anthem, and that his wife will pursue legal action against anyone perpetuating the claim.
Willis thanked President-elect Donald Trump for reviving the song’s popularity in a lengthy Facebook post Monday, noting its rise to the top of the charts after Trump used the song in his presidential campaign. The singer also expressed frustration over the persistent “misguided” framing of the song as pro-gay propaganda.
“Come January 2025, my wife will start suing each and every news organization that falsely refers to Y.M.C.A., either in their headlines or alluded to in the base of the story, that Y.M.C.A. is somehow a gay anthem,” Willis wrote in the Facebook post.
“There’s been a lot of talk, especially of late, that Y.M.C.A. is somehow a gay anthem,” he wrote. “As I’ve said numerous times in the past, that is a false assumption based on the fact that my writing partner was gay, and some (not all) of Village People were gay, and that the first Village People album was totally about gay life … To that I say once again, get your minds out of the gutter. It is not.”
The singer expressed gratitude to Trump for using the song and emphasized his authority over the canon interpretation of its lyrics.
“I am the singer and writer of the lyrics to the hit Y.M.C.A. In fact, as was adjudicated and ruled in a U.S. District Court, I wrote 100% of the lyrics, and my writing partner, Jacques Morali wrote the music,” Willis wrote.
“As I stated on numerous occasions, I knew nothing about the Y being a hang out for gays when I wrote the lyrics to Y.M.C.A. and Jacques Morali (who was gay) never once stated such to me. In fact, Jacques never once told me how to write my lyrics otherwise I would have said to him, you don’t need me, why don’t you simply write the lyrics,” Willis added.
He broke down the meaning behind the song to drive his point home.
“I therefore wrote Y.M.C.A. about the things I knew about the Y in the urban areas of San Francisco such as swimming, basketball, track, and cheap food and cheap rooms. And when I say, ‘hang out with all the boys’ that is simply 1970s black slang for black guys hanging-out together for sports, gambling or whatever,” Willis wrote. “There’s nothing gay about that.”
“However, I don’t mind that gays think of the song as their anthem,” Willis wrote. “But you’d be hard-pressed to find Y.M.C.A. on the play list at any gay club, parade or other gay activity in a way that would suggest it’s somehow an anthem to the community other than alluding to illicit activity, which is defamatory, and damaging to the song. But it stops in 2025.” (RELATED: Donald Trump Settles Music Lawsuit)
This article was originally published at dailycaller.com
